State, Unions Should Negotiate

March 01, 1992

What a difference two years make.

In the 1990 campaign, Lowell P. Weicker Jr. said he would work with state workers' unions to save money, not beat them over the head. His promise of cooperation rather than confrontation won him a big share of the vote for governor from members of state bargaining units. Mr. Weicker cast himself as more reasonable than Republican candidate John G. Rowland, who narrowly lost the election.

Last year, Mr. Weicker negotiated with the union coalition to save more than $350 million. It was a painful, prolonged process with the governor holding the cudgel of layoffs over the workers' heads. But in the end it worked -- talking worked.

The money was saved through an agreement on wage concessions, furloughs and a postponement in the state's pension contribution. The unions preserved most of their members' jobs.

But all that was last year. Now Mr. Weicker wants to save $111 million in expenditures for state employee benefits over the next two years. But he apparently doesn't want to negotiate with the union coalition to achieve those savings. He wants to bypass it.

Mr. Weicker has asked the General Assembly to approve legislation removing pension, health and workers' compensation benefits from collective bargaining beginning July 1, 1994, and revising the benefits package. He would get the savings by borrowing money on the presumed savings two years and more down the line. The governor professes not to like budgetary gimmicks -- and he's been relatively good on that score -- but this is a gimmick.

Moreover, it unnecessarily antagonizes bargaining units that worked with him last year, albeit grudgingly. Stability in state government depends, to a considerable extent, on maintaining a dialogue between the administration and labor.

Mr. Weicker should reconsider this particular challenge of collective bargaining. He ought to go to the negotiating table. The goal is to save money, not needlessly alienate state workers. They're not the enemy. For its part, the union coalition could help persuade the governor by offering a new round of talks.

Connecticut would be going it alone in the region if Mr. Weicker's proposal on stripping out health-care benefits from bargaining won approval. Such benefits are negotiated in Maine, New

Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York and Pennsylvania.

This is the only state, however, that bargains over the state retirement system. Still, the unions have a point when they say that only since the pension system came under contract negotiations has it become stable with more adequate funding, insulated from politics and a major source of budget relief in tough times.

Retaining the benefits package as a matter for bargaining doesn't mean that changes should not be made.

For example, having fewer bargaining units than the 28 or so that now represent state workers would make the process much less complicated and save money. And lawmakers must break their habit of rubber-stamping every contract.

Mr. Weicker's austerity budget will not work unless there are cost-saving changes in workers' compensation and health and pension benefits. But the goal of fiscal and political stability may be achieved only if each side avoids unilaterally imposing its wishes on the other